Donkey Kong and Pac-Man Records Stripped from Famous 1980s Gamer

If you own a Ms Pacman cocktail table, or any other type of arcade machine, you will probably spend time trying to beat your highest score. It is unlikely you would go to the lengths that well-known gamer Billy Mitchell did, however. His goal was to get world records, and he achieved those goals – until recently.

This is because accusations of cheating that have dogged Mitchell for a long time have caught up with him as he has now been stripped of his arcade game playing records.

Accusations and Investigations

Billy Mitchell is probably the most famous gamer of the 1980s. He held multiple gaming records, including being the first person to get a perfect game of Pac-Man by scoring the highest possible number of points, and the first person to achieve a million-point game playing Donkey Kong.

In fact, the latter record was the subject of the 2007 feature-length documentary King of Kong.

The organization that tracks and recognizes high scores for arcade and video games is Twin Galaxies. One of the requirements is the gameplay must be recorded. Mitchell did this in his record-breaking Donkey Kong game, but fans of the game suspected Mitchell of not playing by the rules.

In particular, they suspected Mitchell of beating the Donkey Kong record on emulation software rather than on an original arcade machine. As it was emulation software, it could have tools to make the game easier to play than the original game found in arcades.

Records Lost

One Donkey Kong fan called Jeremy Young offered proof of this by showing how footage of Mitchell’s gameplay looked more like an emulator than an arcade machine.

This prompted Twin Galaxies to carry out its own investigation, which was completed earlier this month. It came to the same conclusion as Young, i.e. the gameplay footage is likely to have come from emulation software. Even an investigator working for Mitchell came to the same conclusion.

As a result, Twin Galaxies stripped Mitchell of his Donkey Kong record, his Pac-Man record, and all other records. Twin Galaxies also notified Guinness World Records who in turn announced that it no longer recognizes Mitchell as the holder of either the Donkey Kong or Pac-Man records.

What is unclear now is what happens next in this decades-old saga. We’ll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, you can get your own arcade machine to try to beat your own top scores on your favorite classic arcade games. Check out the range today.

FREE Retro Game!

SIGN UP NOW FOR OUR MONTHLY PROMOTION AND ENTER TO WIN A FREE Retro Arcade Classics Game: SIGN UP!